


Stark Grey

by Paige_Marie



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-29
Updated: 2014-08-29
Packaged: 2018-02-15 08:08:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2221755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paige_Marie/pseuds/Paige_Marie





	Stark Grey

When Jon was six he knew his mom was dying. He knew because the hospital began to feel more like a home than the house he could no longer remember the address for. He knew because his mom told him long ago, long before her hair started to fall out, long before her clothes began to fit her like someone who never got enough to eat. Jon knew before the kind lady who smelt like chocolate chip cookies and smiled like his mom used to, before she got sick that is, sat down to tell him what he already knew. Jon knew his mom was going to die, simply because that is just what people do.

Even knowing the truth Jon spent all his wishes, a combination of birthday candles that were never blown out and Christmas presents left in the store rather than under the tree, on someday. Someday his mom would be heathy, totally heathy, someday his dad would come back, someday Jon wouldn’t feel so much like a Snow but like a Stark instead. Someday never came.

And despite what people might believe, knowing something is going to happen doesn’t make it any easy when it does, not even by a little bit.

Lyanna Stark got better when Jon was eight but better wasn’t enough to keep her around until Jon saw nine. Jon was two weeks away from nine when his mom went into the hospital the last time, needless to say that birthday was less about presents and more about waiting for the end. Jon turned nine and one day when… when his mom wasn’t there anymore. It was unfair, it was totally and utterly unfair, every last bit of it. Jon was nine when he was standing at his mom’s grave. He was wearing a suit of stark grey that made everything seem way to real. And he wished this was just a dream, that he would wake up and she’ll be their- all black hair and grey eyes that are mirrors of his own. Eyes that dance when Spring made its first appearance.

Jon was nine when he stopped praying and he hadn't preyed since. He got bounced around for a while after his mom was laid to rest until he landed a little more than unsteady on the front step of his uncle's house. God, that word certainty felt weird in his mouth because although he saw his mom’s brother at Christmas every other year its been a while. So yeah the word feels strange on his tongue and why shouldn’t it. Because the only family Jon’s ever really known now lives in the spaces between this world and whatever comes next.

A women with fire in her hair and none of it in her smile opens the door while pulling him inside. “Ned, Lyanna’s boy is here.” It’s the first time that Jon hears his mom’s name not just like a disease, a statistic to be written about, but like a prayer. 

When Jon’s eleventh birthday rolled around he made sure no one noticed but Jon found himself with a shadow the next day. The shadow of a boy that could have been king if things like Kings and Queens and Dragons and Thrones to be won and lost actually existed and not just inside the pages of storybooks that Jon never bothered to read. Because when someone you love is sick you have to go up real fast and so Jon did.

It’s on the fifth anniversary of Lyanna’s death when Robb and Jon and of course Theon, the instigator of this whole mess scramble on top of the Stark’s house drunk. They watched the stars trying in vain to quiet the demons within themselves, well Theon and Jon were. And for the most part everything seemed to actually be working out for Jon. Mrs. Stark finally relented to his all black wardrobe and Arya was one of the best things that ever happened to Jon and he was sure the whole continent of Westoros even if none of them know it yet. 

But than the other shoe dropped because as Theon Greyjoy once told him, “The problem with people, Jon, is that they are never what you want them to be.” Jon got shaken awake by Robb who had tears in his eyes. “It’s Theon, Jon, it’s bad- it’s really bad.”

Jon was 18 the first time him and Arya got into a very serious argument. His acceptance letter to the Night’s Watch didn’t come a day to soon. Jon was eighteen the night he shipped out and was twenty before he returned.

He met Ygritte one night on leave in a bar called “Beyond the Wall.” She was a child of the stars and everything good and bad about them. Beautiful but untouchable and like the supernovas- Ygritte burned fast and quick and stunning and like the supernovas- when she went, everyone watched her go.

Two weeks after the day of his twenty fourth birthday Jon returns home home with another suit one that’s still stark grey and still makes him feel like he’s living a bad dream. He pulls away from the cemetery that shouldn’t be filled with those who died to young. But than again Jon supposed that’s all relative because everyone’s born and everyone dies but not everyone lives and Theon Greyjoy was dead long before he was put into the ground. And Robb, well it fucking hurts to think about Robb because he was one of the good guys and what they forget to mention about the good guys is that they bleed just like the rest.

When Jon is twenty six he stops breathing, it’s nothing romantic, it’s not powerful it’s not special. His heart stops beating plain and simple his lungs give out. Everything hat makes Jon, Jon, his stark black hair, Lyanna’s grey eyes, Arya Stark’s smile, Robb Stark’s laugh, Ygritte… Ygritte’s soul on fire, Theon's broken one, were all pieces duct taped together to try and make Jon seem whole and well they broke so did he. No songs will be sung about the boy who felt more like a bastard and less like a knight, no stories will be told of what Robb Stark and Jon could have done because stories only get written if someone gives a damn. Jon Snow it reads on his tombstone because Arya figures he would have gotten a kick out of it, if he were here that is, but he isn't not anymore. And Jon is laid to rest near Robb and Lyanna and for the first time Arya figures he’s home.


End file.
